If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

He always resorts to that kind of bullshit when faced with moral clarity. He has nothing else. He is not to be taken seriously.

Funny that you consider bigotry, arrogance and a complete lack of knowledge to be "moral clarity."

Originally Posted by NonConformist

Not gonna happen! If America stopped buying, or they stopped selling, Japan, China and other would go tits up. They NEED our economy.

Originally Posted by gator

I have been reading a lot lately that the infrastructure of the Air Force needs a major overhaul. A lot of the aircraft are aging and we donít have enough replacement aircraft in the pipeline.
The F-22 is a 5th generation aircraft that will be the state of the art but we fight most of our wars with 4th and 3rd generation aircraft and they are really aging. There is serious doubt about the F-35 being able to do the job it was designed to do.
The command and control systems in the Air Force also needs a major re modernization.
If you would like I can go and hunt up those articles for you.

Sounds like you don't know a whole lot about the problem. The Air Force has been given far more money than they were originally allocated, and have managed to avoid making any structural changes to meet the challenges of the new operational environment. They don't need whole wings of new fighters. What they need are UAVs, including predators, tactical air support craft (the A-10 is a lot older than the F-15, and the F16 is totally inadequate for the ground support mission) and additional airlift capacity for transporting the ground units of the other services. However, since nobody gets promoted for flying drones, close air support or trash haulers, the Air Force considers these platforms beneath them, and they continue to try to convince the rest of the DOD that they need more glamorous systems. Once again, you're wrong on the facts, but never in doubt.

Originally Posted by gator

The Middle East has always been a tarbaby for the United States. We can spend a lot of money and we can spend a lot of lives but at the end of the day we are not going to change a goddamn thing. I think we found that out in Iran and in places like Beirut. It is like the worst foreign entanglement we have ever been in.

Iran flipped to the dark side because we failed to intervene, not because we backed the wrong side or wasted our efforts. Carter pressured the Shah to keep him from crushing Khomeini, resulting in not only the creation of a truly brutal and unstable state, but the spread of radical Islam throughout the world, and not just because Iran wanted to export it's revolution. The Saudis were completely freaked by the thought of the Shia becoming the top dogs in Islam, so after the Khomeini revolution, they began exporting their own version of Islam. That's why all of those Wahabbi madrassas suddenly started showing up in places like Pakistan, Indonesia and Virginia. The Saudis were trying to ensure that the next generation of Islam would look just like them, and the result was the spread of the most backward, intolerant strain of the most aggressive religion in the world.

Originally Posted by gator

The bottom line on the Middle East is all really need to be concerned about is the oil supply. The US, along with the rest of the world, needs to make sure the oil supply is stable.

And just how do we do that if we don't have the power projection platforms in place to engage those states that will interdict oil supplies? Russia didn't invade Georgia over South Ossetia, they invaded because Georgia has an oil pipeline that bypasses them and can provide petroleum to Europe independently of Putin. That's a direct threat to his ambitions. How do you propose keeping that pipeline open without bringing Georgia into NATO? Then there's the Persian Gulf. Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia export most of their oil through the Gulf. How can we stop Iran from closing it off without assets in the region? Then there's Venezuela. In case you haven't noticed, Hugo Chavez is using his oil revenues to build up his armed forces, supply sympathetic insurgencies in allied countries, like Colombia, and increase his military posture. No threat to us there, right? He's just another nationalist leader, like Ho Chi Minh, right?

Originally Posted by gator

We donít need to be concerned about Israelís right to exist or the plight of the Palestinians or who is running Beirut nowadays. Let those people over there worry about things like that. It is not our problem.

If we were to get out of the business of intervening in the affairs of other countries that has nothing to do with our own security we would be pleasantly surprised to find out a lot of this terror shit against the US would go away. We created that monster and if we think it is going away by us just killing more people then we are very naÔve.

Once again, you have no concept of what impacts on our security. Hopefully, someone will quote this so that you see it, since you obviously have me on ignore. Sadly, I can't return the favor, as your admin status prevents it, but as long as I have to read your drivel, I'll take the time to debunk it.

Sounds like you don't know a whole lot about the problem. The Air Force has been given far more money than they were originally allocated, and have managed to avoid making any structural changes to meet the challenges of the new operational environment. They don't need whole wings of new fighters. What they need are UAVs, including predators, tactical air support craft (the A-10 is a lot older than the F-15, and the F16 is totally inadequate for the ground support mission) and additional airlift capacity for transporting the ground units of the other services. However, since nobody gets promoted for flying drones, close air support or trash haulers, the Air Force considers these platforms beneath them, and they continue to try to convince the rest of the DOD that they need more glamorous systems. Once again, you're wrong on the facts, but never in doubt.

Amen to that. The F-22 program cost 62 billion dollars yet I can't get from Hawaii to Iraq without our C-5 breaking down in Travis, Dover, Rota.... Meanwhile the USAF is convinced the C-5M will be their workhorse through 2040....seeing as it was made in 1968 that's a 72 year shelf life. You hit it right on the head Sir, nobody gets badass medals for flying the cargo to and from theatre.

Although as far as aircraft are concerned, I'd much rather have the Air Force flying drones, cargo and bombers and the Navy flighting close air support & ground fighters. Naval & Marine Corps pilots kick ass in fighter jets, from everything I've seen.

Amen to that. The F-22 program cost 62 billion dollars yet I can't get from Hawaii to Iraq without our C-5 breaking down in Travis, Dover, Rota.... Meanwhile the USAF is convinced the C-5M will be their workhorse through 2040....seeing as it was made in 1968 that's a 72 year shelf life. You hit it right on the head Sir, nobody gets badass medals for flying the cargo to and from theatre.

Although as far as aircraft are concerned, I'd much rather have the Air Force flying drones, cargo and bombers and the Navy flighting close air support & ground fighters. Naval & Marine Corps pilots kick ass in fighter jets, from everything I've seen.

I'll give them a Hooah on that.

Not to mention the Army. I don't have a problem with the Air Force having strat air, but tac air needs to belong to the ground commanders. That means A-10s or the next generation version of it under Army, Navy or USMC control. True, that will cost more, as each service will now have to maintain a more robust aviation branch, and there will be some redundancies, but the critical issue is having the right platform for the job. The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the Warthog for decades, replacing it with the F-16, which is completely wrong for the role (it's too fast, doesn't have enough armor and carries far less ordnance).

Meanwhile, the C-5 is only one aging airframe. The C-130 is similarly antiquated, but the Air Force doesn't want to look at new solutions. One of the reasons that the Stryker program was such a pain is that they had to be transportable by C-130, which meant compromising the vehicle weights and sizes to fit the cargo plane, rather than modifying the plane to carry the payload. Result? A vehicle that was originally supposed to be able to fight the minute that it hit the ground now requires remounting weapons, an expensive hydraulic suspension system (to lower the profile for flight and raise it for ops) and separate armor appliques that are mounted on arrival at theater. True, these modifications don't take that long per vehicle, but when you're moving a whole brigade, that adds up, and the per vehicle cost does, too. Instead of trying to fit the next generation of combat vehicles into old airframes, they need to update the air fleet to meet the needs of the force.

BTW, the Navy has a similar attitude towards sealift capacity, but nowhere near as bad as the Air Force's.